1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a new and unique horseshoe assembly and more particularly to a horseshoe assembly adapted to accommodate a hoof of a horse's leg therein essentially including a body made of elastomeric material such as natural rubber, synthetic rubber or the like material, an inclined side wall portion molded integrally with the body to receive the instep of the hoof therein and a band adapted to be bridged between both the rear end parts of the inclined side wall portion and across the rear part of the leg.
2. Prior Art
It has been a common practice long since to put horseshoes made of steel on hoofs for all horses including racing horses and others in order to protect them from cracking and accidental injuries. A typical conventional method of putting the horseshoes on the hoofs is practiced by way of the steps of correctly locating one of them on the bottom surface of the hoof to fix it thereagainst, driving nails into the hoof from the bottom and then bending a projected part of the nails which penetrates through the hoof and projects above the upper surface of the hoof. However, when employing the above-mentioned conventional method of fixing the horseshoes onto the hoofs of a horse, it would be naturally necessary to renail them each time they are replaced with new ones, thus resulting in many nail holes being left through the hoofs. This eventually leads to no space being left for renailing through the hoof.
Particularly, in case of a racing horse it is common that a horseshoe of the type having a relatively wide width that is generally called a "flat shoe" is fixedly put on the hoof using nails while it is still red hot. At the time of a horse race, however, it is necessary that the flat shoes be replaced with other ones made of light alloy metal having a relatively narrow width that are generally called a "race shoe". Consequently, it is inevitable that replacing cycles in the order of "flat shoe-race shoe-flat shoe" are repeated for a considerably short period of time. This causes a number of nail holes to be pierced through the hoof. In an extreme case it is impossible to fit horseshoes onto the hoofs any longer and it is often found that the hoof drops or cracks during racing.
Further, due to the fact that the conventional horseshoes are made of metallic material and has no elasticity it is found that the legs hurt because of an exposure to shock caused during swift running and injuries occur due to kicking activities among horses.
In view of the problems inherent to the conventional horseshoes as described above the inventor invented improved horseshoes made of synthetic rubber and filed an application for utility model (of which invention has been granted as an utility model under Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 7,585/73).
Since the above-proposed horseshoes are made of synthetic rubber and they are fixed to the bottom of hoofs with the aid of an adhesive, there is no fear of causing injuries on the hoofs. In addition no hurt occurs to the legs during gallopping or walking owing to elasticity of the syntheic rubber and moreover no injury occurs due to playful activities among horses such as kicking or the like.
However, it is found that the improved horseshoes have still drawbacks. Specifically, after applying an adhesive onto the bottom of a hoof it is necessary to hold up a leg in the folded state until the adhesive is completely hardened, thus resulting in a long period of time being consumed. In an extreme case where a powerful adhesive is applied it becomes difficult to remove the horseshoe from the bottom of the hoof and sometimes removal can be carried out only by a machining operation such as cutting, scraping or the like.
Further, the inventor invented another improved horseshoes of the type in which they are fixed to the bottom of hoofs by applying an adhesive thereto, wherein the improvement consists in that each of the horseshoes has a surface facing the ground on which at least on recess is formed for driving a small nail into the hoof so that fixing of the horseshoe with the aid of the adhesive is temporally assisted by the nail. Later he filed an application for patent on an invention which has been granted a patent in The United States (U.S. Pat. No. 4,286,666). However, these improved horseshoes have still a drawback that as a temporary fixing means a nail should be driven into the hoof even though it has small dimensions, causing the hoof to be weakened thereby.